Saturday Night at the 413
by WhimsicalRealist
Summary: Welcome to the 413. It's a sad hole-in-the-wall that wreaks of smoke and booze, frequented only by the lonely and miserable city-dwellers...but at it least it's something to fall back on at the end of the week. Drop by on a Saturday night and you'll be in for a show that might help you forget things for a while. ["Piano Man" lyrics (c) Billy Joel]


Like most hole-in-the wall bars, the 413 was a poorly lit affair with a thick miasma of cigarette smoke and casual despair. No one went to the 413 for a good time, they went to wallow with other poor souls weighed down by the chains of the everyday grind. It was most active on the weekends, especially at nine o'clock on Saturday while most of the normal world was at home with their loved ones. It was rare to see any new faces, the place just barely getting by on the patronage of the regular crowd alone.

At his usual spot at the bar was a young man in a well-worn tweed suit with a sad sort of smile and messy black hair who went by the name John Egbert. He was nursing a glass of beer while indulging the mumblings an older, drunken gentleman sitting next to him who was on perhaps his third tonic and gin.

"Shon, can yeh play me a memory?" he asked, looking at his younger companion with bloodshot eyes. "I'm not too shure how it goesh, but it's shad and shweet and I knew it when I wore a younger man'sh clothesh."

John chuckled a bit and finished off his beer before he gave a nod, standing up from the stool. That was why he was here, after all.

"Sure thing, Mister English, I'll do my best."

Before he could depart, however, the blonde bartender with tinted glasses hailed him.

"John, want another to take with you?" he asked, hands busy with drying a mug with a dingy towel.

"Nah, thanks though, Dave," John replied as cheerfully as he could manage.

Dave Strider was a good friend of his since they were boys, always giving him his drinks on the house whenever he came around. John did feel a bit reluctant to accept them at first, but he assured him that the manager certainly didn't mind, considering. While John was always a prankster and class-clown of sorts, Dave was quick-witted and the true comedian of the two.

But though he had a clear talent for theatrics, here he was tending the 413's bar, dutifully providing drinks and lighting cigarettes for the patrons. Despite a nearly iron-clad poker face, if you really knew the guy you could tell that deep down there was someplace he would rather be.

"I think this job is killing me," Dave added suddenly, the smile falling from his face for a moment. "I'm sure I could be a movie star or something if I just got out of this place."

"Gotta keep trying, then," John offered with what he hoped was an optimistic tone. "You never know, maybe you'll finally get a callback at the next audition!"

"Yeah," Dave muttered more to himself than his friend, focus returning to drying the mug. "Maybe."

So went just one sad tale gathering dust at the 413. But the bar was a veritable library of them and John was familiar with nearly each by this point, glimpsing their tattered pages over the course of the past few months.

On his way to the battered stage, he passed a particularly smoky booth where two gentleman sat in a heated discussion. One was a writer by the name of Sollux who spoke with a lisp. He was always so busy with his work that he had never bothered much with relationships and often lamented his wasted youth. The other was a Naval officer named Eridan who favored fragrant cigars and had one held between his fingers as he gestured, creating swirling tendrils of emphasis throughout his tale of love lost. He blamed it on his wanderlust and John imagined that he would never change.

"But if not for the Dersian party's continued efforts to undermine the base values of the Prospitarian party, they would be an almost credible group worthy of running the-oh! Hello, Mister Egbert."

Absorbed in his own thoughts, John had nearly run into the 413's soft-spoken waitress, Kanaya. She was a strikingly tall woman with pale skin and the saddest green eyes he'd ever seen. He gave her an apologetic smile, which she returned before her attention fell back to the blonde woman she was speaking with.

Apparently she had begun having regular political oriented conversations with the enigmatic Rose Lalonde, a usually silent facet of the usual crowd who spent more time observing and taking notes than actually drinking. In fact, she only ever ordered a cup of hot tea or a glass of water, asking for it 'on the rocks' much to Dave's exasperation. John never could get a good read on her, but it seemed that she was enjoying these new exchanges with the opinionated waitress.

In the last booth before the stage was another pair of men in business suits. One of them seemed high as a kite while his companion was angrily ranting about their boss, taking a drag from his hand-rolled cigarette that John was inclined to believe did not contain just tobacco. The first gave him a wave and a grinned cheerfully, his hair sticking out all over the place as if he'd just gotten out of bed.

"Fuck, Gamzee, are you even listening?" the other growled, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray.

"Shoosh, Karkat," he replied, pointing to John as he passed by. "Show's about t'start."

As he mounted the stage and pulled the stool back from the old upright piano, a reverent hush began to fall over the bar. John could still hear whispered conversation, the light jingle of ice against glasses, the never sleeping city soundscape beyond the front door. He lifted the cover from the yellowing keys and blew away some of the lingering dust, pulling the bench closer again so he could seat himself before the instrument.

The 413 was more than just a bar to these people, to John. They may never see one another outside in the light, but in that dark place they were a family. A family sharing a drink called loneliness, but it was far better than drinking alone.

Nearby, the door to the back office opened and the manager, the elder Strider brother, propped it open with a chunk of wood and quickly surveyed the bar. Big crowd by the 413's standards. He flashed John a grin before returning to his desk. Some months ago was the first time he had come to the 413 and saw that they had the piano. No one touched it the entire night and before he had gone home, John had asked Dirk if he could return the next day to play. That first time he played, the music had cut across the general din and silenced everyone. After that, every Saturday John came to play and Dirk knew that he was the reason the bar was so full on those nights. Something about his music helped them to forget their worries, if even just for a little while.

Dirk was kind enough to provide John with a jar to collect tips, placing it on the edge of the stage.

Fingers moved to the keys. He needed no sheet music to read from, awakening the piano with the carnival-like melody he had learned long ago from his father. It didn't have words, really, save for a silly refrain he sang into a microphone musty with the smell of last week's beer:

"Oh la, la la de de da. La la, de de da da da."

As John played, many of the patrons took turns coming forward to drop money into the jar. It wasn't a lot, but it certainly helped put bread on his table while he was between jobs. By the time he finished nearly an hour later, the crowd had begun to shuffle out into the night as closing call approached. John gently lowered the cover over the keys once more and moved to the edge of the stage, sitting down beside the jar with his legs dangling over the edge.

Inside the jar he discovered two crisp twenties that smelled faintly of smoke, several crumpled fives and ones, and a napkin bearing a note that read "I.O.U." with a black lipstick kiss upon it. Smiling, he pocketed his earnings and lowered himself off the stage to make his way back to the bar. Next to his stool where the older adventurer had been sitting previously was Karkat sipping a low ball of whiskey on the rocks. He looked up as John sat down, shaking his head with a snort.

"Man, what the hell are you doin' here?" he asked, earning a laugh from the musician as Dave brought him a beer.

"Just trying to get by," he raised his glass in a toast. "Just trying to get by."

"Aren't well all," Karkat agreed, clinking his glass against John's.

**Oh la, la la de de da.** **La la, de de da da da.** **Sing us a song, you're the piano man,** **Sing us a song tonight.** **Well, we're all in the mood for a melody,** **And you've got us feelin' alright.**


End file.
